It's a sad day writing this blog as it means we've had the last WINOL of this year. It's been a long but enjoyable year so far; whilst WINOL has been difficult sometimes, and there's no doubt it has, I think everyone on the team can take a few lessons from our mistakes and our triumphs.
The week on WINOL started like any other, a debrief from our November 30th extravaganza gave us some confidence to go into a normal WINOL as prepared as we've ever been. The news was a little slow that week, meaning our stories weren't necessarily as big as they had been in previous bulletins, (there was no Hampshire Police story that's for sure). But even so, the news reporters got their stories in as quick as they could and the show ran almost too smoothly. I kept assuming something would go wrong but we had calm direction from Dan who never seems fazed even when everything is going wrong around us, as it often does. I actually spent the bulletin down on the floor in the studio, cuing Aimee on sport who was without talkback, one of our few actual issues. It gave me a different perspective on the bulletin as I was being directed on the camera and wasn't a part of the gallery and the goings on in there. I was pretty pleased with my part on the bulletin, (of course I did straplines again, I de-centered the names and titles because I thought it looked better and no one complained so happy days), the framing on camera 3 was wrong but that is something that should have been sorted before we started. I was on camera 2 and did the move before and after the handover successfully and cued Aimee at the right time so I don't think anyone can expect more than that on camera.
I also filmed the last WINOL Games of the year, not quite as auspicious but I've really enjoyed working on that and hopefully it'll continue after the New Year.
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
Showing posts with label Sub-Editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sub-Editing. Show all posts
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Third WINOL - It had to get better eventually
We're not quite perfect yet but after the shambles of last week, the on time, full with packages and legal issue free WINOL we put out last Wednesday was a relief and a release. The atmosphere in the gallery and in the newsroom after the broadcast, and even the debrief, was such a contrast to the way we all felt last week.
There was some good constructive criticism to take away though. Whilst we were better prepared, something I pretty much contribute to the large amount of lists drawn up by Dom, we didn't meet all our deadline. OK so at least the broadcast went out on time this week but there's no harm in being even more prepared, the rehearsals which we missed out on last week proved invaluable even if the main outcome was the delightfully cheesy snow puns (Scores were frozen, snow way we can continue, on this this slippery slope etc). They were probably too much, even for the regional news style that we're going for but at least we weren't so stressed that we couldn't have fun with the script. We do need to do some extra work on the script though, I know for a fact that me and Dan were panicking slightly when the script didn't arrive for Dan to type into the autocue. When we got the script we attempted to copy and paste it into the autocue program which wouldn't work at first; a quick bit of computer know how and George managed to convert the word file to a compatible version using an online converter. A simple enough thing to do but well done to him for being calm and collected and sorting the issue out as quick as possible.
I learnt another skill on production as I worked on the sound desk during the broadcast. My main job in the day though was getting the headline clips and packages from the news reporters and sports which is one of the worst jobs, not because it's particularly difficult, but because you spend your entire day just bugging everyone to get the clips. I lost count of the amount of times I said, "I'm really sorry, but..." I probably didn't make any friends doing that job but at least I got it done.
In summary... YAY!! We got a good WINOL out. You can watch it here.
There was some good constructive criticism to take away though. Whilst we were better prepared, something I pretty much contribute to the large amount of lists drawn up by Dom, we didn't meet all our deadline. OK so at least the broadcast went out on time this week but there's no harm in being even more prepared, the rehearsals which we missed out on last week proved invaluable even if the main outcome was the delightfully cheesy snow puns (Scores were frozen, snow way we can continue, on this this slippery slope etc). They were probably too much, even for the regional news style that we're going for but at least we weren't so stressed that we couldn't have fun with the script. We do need to do some extra work on the script though, I know for a fact that me and Dan were panicking slightly when the script didn't arrive for Dan to type into the autocue. When we got the script we attempted to copy and paste it into the autocue program which wouldn't work at first; a quick bit of computer know how and George managed to convert the word file to a compatible version using an online converter. A simple enough thing to do but well done to him for being calm and collected and sorting the issue out as quick as possible.
I learnt another skill on production as I worked on the sound desk during the broadcast. My main job in the day though was getting the headline clips and packages from the news reporters and sports which is one of the worst jobs, not because it's particularly difficult, but because you spend your entire day just bugging everyone to get the clips. I lost count of the amount of times I said, "I'm really sorry, but..." I probably didn't make any friends doing that job but at least I got it done.
In summary... YAY!! We got a good WINOL out. You can watch it here.
Sunday, 9 October 2011
Second WINOL. Have we improved?
The simple answer to that question is probably a no. We had more technical issues than even the most vindictive person could imagine, I even remember Ali at one point exclaiming "I've had every technical difficulty imaginable, haven't I?" Well despite those, we still managed to get the WINOL bulletin done on ti- Oh wait no it wasn't on time either. Balls.
Remember those technical difficulties? Well they plagued us in the studio as well. We couldn't get the talkback feature working on the headsets meaning the newsreaders couldn't hear a word that was being said in the gallery. Eventually we found one headset that worked, attached to one of the cameras, meaning our editor Will had to cue the newsreaders from what he was being told by production editor Jack up in the Gallery. It wasn't an ideal situation to say the least.
We'll learn from this though and I think that's all you can do from a situation like that. We messed up. But we're still only two weeks in and we can't be perfect this early on, it's just ridiculous to put that sort of pressure on ourselves. The third years had this all last year and hopefully they understand that we can only really get better, the mistakes we make will help us to put better packages together and to pull together as a WINOL news team much better than we have done so far. In our debrief Angus said there was no sense of urgency and he was right, we're putting out a news broadcast in the hope that it becomes a real source of news for the students of Winchester and beyond, we can't let our deadlines slip.
On my part I was doing the straplines again and working from the template we had last week, I had them all finished by about 11, too late for a start but at least they were done. Suddenly though I was informed we had a new logo, meaning new straps and that I'd have to do all of them again. Annoying yes but I think I managed to pull together well and get the new straps out and to the reporters, learning a new skill in the process as I'm now able to make the straplines and put them into the reports for the reporters or show them if they're willing to take a minute to learn, (although it's bloody hard to find a moment sometimes when you're rushing to get something edited on time).
This week will be better. I'm going to really try my hardest to do my jobs as soon as I possibly can so that I'm not at fault, and then help anyone who is struggling because WINOL is a team effort, we're a news team in a news room. News team! Assemble!! (http://youtu.be/PVlXYoVZHfA)
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
Remember those technical difficulties? Well they plagued us in the studio as well. We couldn't get the talkback feature working on the headsets meaning the newsreaders couldn't hear a word that was being said in the gallery. Eventually we found one headset that worked, attached to one of the cameras, meaning our editor Will had to cue the newsreaders from what he was being told by production editor Jack up in the Gallery. It wasn't an ideal situation to say the least.
We'll learn from this though and I think that's all you can do from a situation like that. We messed up. But we're still only two weeks in and we can't be perfect this early on, it's just ridiculous to put that sort of pressure on ourselves. The third years had this all last year and hopefully they understand that we can only really get better, the mistakes we make will help us to put better packages together and to pull together as a WINOL news team much better than we have done so far. In our debrief Angus said there was no sense of urgency and he was right, we're putting out a news broadcast in the hope that it becomes a real source of news for the students of Winchester and beyond, we can't let our deadlines slip.
On my part I was doing the straplines again and working from the template we had last week, I had them all finished by about 11, too late for a start but at least they were done. Suddenly though I was informed we had a new logo, meaning new straps and that I'd have to do all of them again. Annoying yes but I think I managed to pull together well and get the new straps out and to the reporters, learning a new skill in the process as I'm now able to make the straplines and put them into the reports for the reporters or show them if they're willing to take a minute to learn, (although it's bloody hard to find a moment sometimes when you're rushing to get something edited on time).
This week will be better. I'm going to really try my hardest to do my jobs as soon as I possibly can so that I'm not at fault, and then help anyone who is struggling because WINOL is a team effort, we're a news team in a news room. News team! Assemble!! (http://youtu.be/PVlXYoVZHfA)
Until Next Time. Stay Classy Internet.
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